


Fool for You

by hearthope



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Pining, this is some type of au in which volleyball whomst? and ig they're in college idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 00:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthope/pseuds/hearthope
Summary: Yahaba’s looking at him, in that way only Yahaba does, and the way Yahaba always does when he looks at Kentarou — like he can see every piece of him under his skin, inside and out.  Like it doesn’t matter what Kentarou might try to hide from him, because he’s going to see it anyway.  So he’s got to see something on his face, because his smile dials down about twelve notches into something softer, something sadder, and he only says, “Let me know you get in okay, alright?”Kentarou snorts, trying to be casual.  Trying not to choke.  “It’s two floors up, I’ll be fine.”For four years, Kyoutani's been holding his feelings for Yahaba in.





	Fool for You

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> [i'm a loser who loves you](https://youtu.be/Nu2yQ1zYDYU)  
> yes, i'm a misery  
> 

Yahaba calls Kentarou at one o’clock in the morning, on the dot, and doesn’t even wait to hear a _hello_ (or the piece of his mind Kentarou’s ready to give about the _time_ does he even know how to read a clock, seriously) before spouting off about the anime he’s likely finally caught up on. Kentarou blinks, puts his phone on speaker, sets it on his desk, and goes back to the laundry he was folding.

  


“I mean really, _really,_ they’re just gonna kill him off like that. Like, y’know, of course something’s gonna happen to him, it was obvious the second they introduced him.” There’s the muffled sound of keys jingling and a door closing. “An old partner? Mentor to the top student? And as powerful as he is? Of course something had to happen to that fucker, but I didn’t think they’d _kill him off._ And oh— oh!” His car starting, seatbelt clicking. “Do you want to hear — listen, Kyou, are you listening? Do you want to hear what they did to his student?”

  


Kentarou tucks a stack of folded shirts into his dresser drawer. He already knows it doesn’t matter what his answer is; Yahaba will tell him anyway. “Can I ask where you’re going this late at night?”

  


“McDonald’s.” Yahaba doesn’t have to be in front of him for Kentarou to see the dismissive wave of his hand. “He lost _everything._ Top student reduced to nothing! The whole arc they build him up and make every last sorry one of us fall in love with him, just to watch as he has everything he worked and trained _so hard_ for ripped away from him. Do you want a milkshake?”

  


Kentarou’s eyes slide to his alarm clock. He should already be asleep. He’s got class at nine, and can’t be up any later than seven, and still has an article to read for his philosophy class. It’s only a few pages long, but it’ll still take him an hour. He sucks at trying to grasp all the concepts. It gives him a headache.

  


“I’ll take strawberry. Get extra fries, too.”

  


_“Get extra fries,”_ Yahaba mocks, voice lilted way high. “What are you, stupid? Of course I’m gonna get— When have I _not?_ Oh, hey, listen to this — Shinji was around earlier, right? Picking up this book he lent me, you know.” Kentarou narrows his eyes. Watari doesn’t _own_ books. He borrows them from the library or from Kentarou, or finds some pirated copy online if he’s actually desperate.

  


“That was my book,” Kentarou says.

  


“Then you should’ve picked it up yourself. But listen.” Yahaba says that a lot. _Listen._ As if Kentarou’s not already hanging off every word. As if the whole world can’t hear his voice that has a natural volume of a step below what qualifies as yelling. He reaches for a tangle of jeans and turns one of the legs right side out again. “He _actually_ asked out that barista girl. He was probably super lame about it, no, definitely super lame about it, but can you believe it? Can you believe she said _yes?”_

  


“Watari’s a good guy.”

  


“Yeah, who made a total ass of himself the first time they— Hang on.” His voice gets further away, but Kentarou can still hear him making an order through the drive-thru speaker. Two strawberry milkshakes, twenty chicken nuggets, extra fries, as much honey mustard as they’ll give him. More than he needs for the nuggets, Kentarou knows, but he saves it to use with whatever the hell else he eats later. A way to save money. A shitty one, probably, but Kentarou’s never tried to argue the point with him.

  


Kentarou tucks his empty laundry basket back into his closet and drops into his desk chair. He opens his laptop to pull open the article, but he knows he’s not going to get to read it anytime soon. Most likely, he’ll end up reading it on the train to his university, having to skim half of it just to get to the end before his class starts.

  


“What’re you up this late for, anyway?” Yahaba asks, returning to the call. “Don’t you have class in the morning?”

  


“I was doing laundry. I’ve got reading to do.”

  


“Laundry, this late, seriously? Aren’t you, like, scared, being in the basement that late? I don’t even like coming down there with you in the middle of the day, dude, and you’re down there at _midnight?_ That’s when the spirits come out, you do know that, right?”

  


“No one else is ever down there so late,” Kentarou tells him, leaning back in his chair, head tipped back to stare at the ceiling.

  


“Meaning, Yamada-san’s not down there,” Yahaba says. “You— Ah, thank you, you too!— You’re seriously still avoiding her? I’m sure she doesn’t even remember you rejecting her at this point.” Kentarou flinches at that word, _rejection._ It makes it sound even worse than it already is. “Plus, that’s like, a bonus reason why you shouldn’t be down there this late. Midnight, all alone, in that spooky-ass, cobwebbed basement, just you, yourself, and all the ghosts waiting to possess you.”

  


“You’re actually the dumbest person I know.”

  


“I’ll have to introduce you to my friend Kyoutani sometime, then, because you’ve clearly never met.”

  


“Alright, you can shove your milkshake up your ass, then.”

  


Yahaba laughs, loud and sharp. “Kinky, Kyou. Nice try, though, I’m already on my way to yours. Door unlocked? Don’t answer that, of course it is, you’ve never locked the door a day in your life. That creepy-ass dude still hangs out in your stairwell. He’s gonna come for you one day, and I won’t even feel sorry for you. Your basement ghost is gonna possess him and break into your apartment while you’re sleeping, and then it’ll all be over for you, and I will feel _no_ sympathy.”

  


“You missed the part where I won’t be sleeping,” Kentarou says, “because you keep me up until ungodly hours of the night.”

  


“You like talking to me, don’t even try to lie.”

  


“If that’s what you wanna tell yourself, then sure.”

  


“Alright, up my ass the milkshake goes, talk to you tomorrow.”

  


Kentarou snorts, lets his chair fall forward. He tips forward with the momentum of it and braces his hands against his desk before he can slam into it. “I thought you were already on your way here.”

  


“Not true,” Yahaba says. “I am here. I— Jesus, I’ve gotta carry all this shit up to you. She didn’t give me a drink tray, you know. I don’t have enough hands.”

  


“Your own fault.”

  


“This is the part where you’re supposed to offer to come down and help me, be a gracious human being for once in your sorry life.”

  


“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  


“Whatever! See if I care if half your milkshake spills onto the parking lo—“

  


Kentarou hits the button to end the call and gets up to unlock his front door. He has actually been listening to Yahaba about what’s dwelling in his building, but he doesn’t need to know that. It’d go straight to his ego, which is big enough as it is.

  


Yahaba comes in a minute later, both milkshakes full in his hands, key ring held between his teeth. A miniature panda bear charm swings back and forth, bouncing off his chin. He glares at Kentarou as he passes by him to set everything on the kitchen counter, and turns to face him once his hands and mouth are fully free.

  


“You _hung up on me.”_

  


“Like you could’ve carried your phone to continue the call anyway,” Kentarou says. He leans over the counter to dig into the bag for fries. They’re still hot, probably fresh, and probably actually the best tasting thing he’s had in a week. He hopes Yahaba doesn’t dig into his fridge to see he still hasn’t picked up groceries. He already knows every last word he’ll say about it, there’s no need to actually hear it all.

  


“You’re actually the worst best friend anyone could ever ask for.”

  


“Good thing Watari’s your best friend, then.”

  


Yahaba doesn’t find Kentarou’s joke as amusing as he does, and narrows his eyes. “Fuck you, you know that you’re my best friend and that I love you more than anything else in the world, you dumb asshole. Drink your shake, I didn’t bring it over just for you to let it melt.”

  


Kentarou flashes a smile and plucks the cherry off the top of Yahaba’s shake before pulling his own towards him. He doesn’t bother to ask, because he doesn’t have to. Yahaba hates cherries, and only ever gets them because he knows Kentarou likes them.

  


“You finish your paper? How’d your exam go the other day? You haven’t been telling me about school lately, I want to know.”

  


“It’s not all that exciting,” Kentarou says, lifting an eyebrow.

  


“It’s your life, so I wanna know about it,” Yahaba says, gesturing with a half-eaten french fry. Kentarou doesn’t get it, why he bites them in half instead of just putting the whole thing in his mouth. “I don’t care if you sit here and bore me to death about enzymes for three hours, I’m still gonna listen. So? Paper? Exam? What’s going on in your printmaking elective, you haven’t shown me any of your art yet.”

  


Kentarou looks down at his milkshake, watching the condensation beading on the outside of the plastic cup. “I finished my paper, like, three days ago. Two? I don’t know.” He cuts himself off before admitting he hasn’t been sleeping enough to actually keep track of the days. He doesn’t need the lecture right now. Yahaba’s in his apartment at one in the morning, and already spouting too much shit about how much he cares about him. His heart’s fucky enough as it is, he doesn’t need anything else to build on it.

  


“Pretty sure I did well on the exam. There were a few things I didn’t really know, but it wasn’t bad. I haven’t shown you any art because I haven’t actually finished anything yet. We’re not printing anything ’til, like, next week. Is that what you wanna hear?”

  


“Yes, asshole, was that so hard?” Yahaba pops open the box of chicken nuggets. He’s perfectly wide awake at this hour. He doesn’t have university to worry about, and he works whenever he pleases, which means he sleeps through half the day and is up half the night.

  


There are advantages to this, at least. Yahaba’s not blowing up his phone with texts while he’s in class, and there’s someone to keep him company when he’s up late working on assignments.

  


“You said you had reading to do,” he says after a moment. “What about?”

  


“Philosophy,” Kentarou says. “I don’t know. I haven’t really looked at it yet.”

  


“Bring it out here,” Yahaba tells him. “Sit ’n’ read it here, I won’t bother you.”

  


And Kentarou knows he means it. Just because he didn’t feel the need to put himself through four more years of school doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand the weight it puts on Kentarou’s shoulders, and how important it is to him. When Kentarou needs to study, Yahaba sits and lets him.

  


They settle in the living room, Yahaba sprawled across the couch, fries and nuggets on the coffee table, and Kentarou sits on the floor beside him, laptop sitting in front of him, next to his meal. He doesn’t complain when Yahaba runs his fingers through his hair, even though they’re probably half-coated in nugget grease. He slowly scrolls through the article, highlighting the pieces he doesn’t understand so he remembers to ask about them.

  


Yahaba dozes off at some point, hand rested lazily on Kentarou’s shoulder, fingers curled halfway. He’s loud and incessant when he’s awake, but like this, he’s quiet and soft, the dim lighting striking sharp cheekbones, shadowed only by long eyelashes. Everything about Yahaba is soft, when he stops trying to prove himself as anything otherwise. Soft words, soft expression, soft stomach Kentarou always has his head lying on when they’re watching movies, soft touches. It took a good couple years for him to ever let his guard down enough for Kentarou to see this particular side of him, but it’s what catches his heart in his throat every single time, without fail.

  


It was the final piece to click into place, the one that finally made Kentarou admit he was kind of, sort of, just a little bit in love with him. It terrifies him, threatens to eat him alive sometimes. But nights like this, where Yahaba swings around for no other reason than just to see him, it’s okay. Kentarou thinks, this is okay.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yahaba worked all through high school, and the day after their graduation, he bought himself a car. An ancient used Jeep the color of puke with dusty seats and a scratch in the rearview mirror.

  


“You can take the doors off,” he told Kentarou the first time he drove it over to show him.

  


Kentarou didn’t get why he’d want to. Wouldn’t that just make it easier for someone to jack it? Still, Yahaba looked proud of it — _his_ car. Not just a sense of freedom that came with being able to take himself wherever whenever, but pride. His parents worked hard, arguably too hard, Kentarou thought every time he saw them looking weary as hell and two cups of coffee away from heart failure, but they couldn’t give their kids all that much more than what they needed. Not like Watari’s parents, or Kentarou’s, who could afford a little extra. They had full opportunity to attend university even without large scholarships, but Yahaba had his pride.

  


So the car meant something to him. Kentarou tried not to bash it so much to his face.

  


On weekends, if they were all free, Yahaba would swing by to pick up Kentarou and then Watari (always that order, unless he was annoyed with Kentarou, and then he’d get Watari first just to make Kentarou sit in the back seat with a hole in the back of it where stuffing was starting to come out, and by the time they got wherever they were going his knees were stiff), and they’d drive up to go hiking or go window shopping or, once, he took them two hours to an arboretum.

  


Yahaba sings along to his go-to playlist at the absolute top of his lungs. He only stops when he has to get directions from Watari, or when he’s too busy laughing at Kentarou’s expression every time he looks over at him. He leans over to jostle Kentarou’s knee, fully unapologetic, and Kentarou acts like he minds everything about the situation even as Yahaba’s hand burns a hole through his jeans. His voice is Kentarou’s favorite sound, even if it’s belting pop music at inhuman vocal ranges. Especially belting pop music. That’s when the happiness seeps into his voice, matching the grin on his face.

  


Sometimes Kentarou picks Yahaba’s hand off his knee and shoves it back at him. Sometimes he just holds it, playing with his fingers, Yahaba’s voice fading from his mind as his thoughts begin to overflow it. Watari always catches him outside the car after, to tell him hey, _that was really fucking gay._ Kentarou just replies that he’s really fucking gay, so what of it.

  


It catches him off guard when he hears Yahaba singing along to his favorite old rock songs. Yahaba hates the stuff, but he’s got a shitton on his playlist anyway because he knows Kentarou likes it. It’s quieter than when he sings along to the week’s Top 40, but he still sings it confidently, knowing every last one of the lyrics. When Kentarou gives him a look, he quirks an eyebrow.

  


“What? I hear this shit, like, all the time when I’m with you,” he says. “Of course I know it.”

  


Kentarou bites his lip to stop himself from smiling and turns his gaze out the window so it doesn’t linger weirdly long on Yahaba. His voice turns over in his mind all throughout the night after that, until he falls asleep thinking about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The week after he finishes midterms, Yahaba swings by his apartment. Kentarou doesn’t need the text alerting him of his arrival — he can hear LiSA coming up through his open kitchen window. He’ll bet anything Yahaba’s got the doors off, even though the temperature’s starting to drop now, and he’ll have to fight Watari for the blanket he keeps in the back seat.

  


Still, it’s worth it to see Yahaba grinning at him behind his stupid, glinting sunglasses, arm thrown over the back of the passenger seat as he waits for Kentarou to get in. The doors are nowhere to be found.

  


“Sorry we couldn’t go last week,” he says, as if Kentarou actually cares. “I needed the extra work.”

  


“Shut up, you know I don’t give a shit,” Kentarou tells him. “Hurry up before Watari starts trying to ask where we are, he’s already antsy enough.”

  


Yahaba snorts and gives him a two-fingered salute. “Aye aye, captain.” He keeps his arm around Kentarou’s seat even as he drives, and Kentarou watches him like he doesn’t give a shit if Yahaba knows he’s looking. He’s pretty enough as he naturally is, but behind the wheel, he’s something else. Something charged. Kentarou won’t ever _dare_ call him hot to his face, or to Watari’s, he knows he’d never hear the fucking end of it, but the way Yahaba drives with one hand on the wheel, stupid-ass sunglasses halfway down his nose doing nothing to block out the sun and doing everything to give Kentarou an actual look of clear, focused eyes — it’s ridiculous, what it makes him feel.

  


He ruins it when he starts singing along to Blackpink, but the moment is always nice while it lasts.

  


“Oh, hey, hey, listen to this,” Yahaba says, pulling his arm off Kentarou’s seat so he can turn down the radio volume. “Swung around by home the other night, y’know, for Emiko’s birthday. You should’ve come, by the way. I know, you had class, but she missed you. Liked the card though! Cute drawing. But listen, right? Nishimuras? _Moving.”_

  


Kentarou turns his whole body to fully face him. _“Seriously?”_

  


“Seriously,” Yahaba says with a solid nod. “They’ve got the For Sale sign in the middle of their yard and everything. I guess they’re going, like, way south, some quiet little town, as if it’s not already quiet enough here.”

  


It’s probably long overdue, but still hard to believe Yahaba’s neighbors are actually moving. The family’s had the house since the beginning of time. It’s the only one in Yahaba’s neighborhood that looks the way it does, all old-fashioned style. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but they’ve always absolutely refused to do anything about it, much less sell it. He and Yahaba used to go over after school for tea and to work on homework, since both their parents worked late and didn’t trust either one of them alone. Which was fair, Kentarou will admit. They were both sneaky as hell, and probably would’ve ended up doing something stupid somewhere along the line.

  


“Feel like we should, like, help them pack or paint. Something, y’know?” Kentarou says. They were honorary grandparents to them both, in a way.

  


“Yeah, probably.” Yahaba hums, taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “They’ve still got that picture of us in their sitting room. With your front tooth knocked out—“

  


“Because _you_ pegged me with a softball.”

  


“Whatever! It was a baby tooth anyway. Not like I fucked you over for life or anything.”

  


“You got lucky.”

  


_“You_ got lucky!” Yahaba laughs, all breathy and light, the sound of it nearly lost in the wind.

  


Sometimes Kentarou looks back on days like that and realizes how easy it was to fall for Yahaba. With the way he would sit and help the Nishimuras work on their thousand-piece puzzles all focused, laughing at their cheesy jokes, flashing Kentarou warm smiles every time he caught his eye. They’d split bowls of Yakisoba, and Yahaba would always give Kentarou all the onions, even though he liked them just as much. They’d sit, some evenings, in the backyard — somewhere between Yahaba’s and the Nishimuras’, hunched over one Gameboy Color playing Super Mario Land, laughing loud enough they could surely be heard across the neighborhood.

  


Yahaba’s a touchy person, always has been, but he held Kentarou’s hand more back then than he does now.

  


Watari clambers into the back of the Jeep when Yahaba pulls up to his house and immediately wraps the blanket tight around himself.

  


“The hell are the doors off for this time of year?” he snaps, kicking at the back of Yahaba’s seat.

  


“Hey, hey, quit it!” Yahaba reaches around behind himself, trying to swat at Watari’s legs, but his arms aren’t long enough to reach properly. Kentarou just watches and laughs. “They’re off so everyone can hear— Oh, fucking gross, Kyou’s music. Should’ve kept them on after all.”

  


“If it’s gross, why’s it on your playlist?” Kentarou bites.

  


“Because I love you, fuck off,” Yahaba says, smacking his thigh. His hand falls onto his knee after that and Kentarou holds fully still for fear of him moving it. “And it’s like, the last time this year I’ll be able to have them off, so shut up and take it. The breeze is nice.”

  


“The breeze is fucking _cold.”_

  


Yahaba and Kentarou tell him at once, “Shut up about it.”

  


Yahaba’s eyes smile above the frames of his sunglasses, and he returns his focus to the road as he peels away from the curb.

  


Watari leans up between their seats, arms around the backs of both of them. “How’d your exams go, Ken?”

  


Kentarou turns his gaze towards him. Yahaba’s fingers tap an uneven rhythm against his leg, hitting his skin through the hole in his jeans. “Dunno. Don’t think I did bad, but we haven’t gotten results back yet. Yahaba promised to take me for hot pot if I aced philosophy.”

  


“There goes this whole last month’s pay, then, huh?” Watari jokes. “Bet he takes you for hot pot anyway.”

  


“What do you even care, not like you’re invited,” Yahaba says, shoving Watari’s face back. His hand finds its way back to Kentarou’s knee, which only serves to make his laugh brighter.

  


Watari falls back into his own seat with a huff, and gives one last solid kick to Yahaba’s seat. “Whipped-ass,” he mutters.

  


Kentarou blinks and turns to look at the road. He wishes, of all things, that he hadn’t said that.

  


Kentarou’s feelings are one thing. He admitted them to himself long ago, without trying to fight anything about it. Of course he would be in love with Yahaba, it’s the easiest thing in the world to be, and there wouldn’t be anything to gain from trying to act in any way otherwise. Kentarou knows his feelings, Watari knows his feelings, he’d shout his feelings off the damn rooftop for all the world to hear if it weren’t for the fact that Yahaba is a part of that world.

  


The thing is, they were never supposed to be mutual. He never expected them to be. Yahaba is the type of person to fall in love with anyone and everyone at first sight. The trainer at his gym, the girls’ football captain in high school, the boys’ track captain. Every barista that remembers his stupidly complicated order, a police officer that once saved his cat from a telephone pole. So Kentarou knew if Yahaba was ever going to fall for him, the time had long since passed. Except—

  


Kentarou took a two month trip to Korea to visit family, right after he finished his second year of university. And when he came back, he knew. Yahaba doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve. He wears it as a flickering neon sign smack dab in the middle of his chest, impossible to miss. So when he was there waiting to pick Kentarou up at the airport in his shitty, beat-up Jeep, wearing one of _his_ sweatshirts that was big enough on him that he had to roll the sleeves halfway up just to have use of his hands, a bottle of milk tea waiting on the passenger seat, Kentarou knew.

  


It was almost enough to make him feel sick. His feelings were fine when there was nothing to do with them other than to just let them sit. Having this option of possibility sitting in front of him, though, was terrifying. If there was more distance between them now than there was before Kentarou’s trip to Korea, it was his own careful doing. He can deal with Yahaba breaking his heart, but he couldn’t live with breaking Yahaba’s. He couldn’t deal with losing him if things were to go south.

  


He tells himself, in the quietest hours of the night, that he just needs time. To pull his act together, to make sure this isn’t stupid, to— stall. He’s stalling, he knows it. He isn’t scared of loving Yahaba but he sure as hell is terrified of acting on it.

  


Yahaba takes them to a science museum. It’s not one of the biggest or fanciest, but Kyoutani has fond memories of it. They used to take school trips there, and every so often his parents would bring just him and Yahaba and Watari over to look around at all the things their teachers didn’t show them. There’s a whole section on the human body with a giant model to walk through, and see all the anatomy. Yahaba liked to crawl through the pipes of the heart until he nearly got stuck, then refused to ever go back to that section again. They used to get ice cream after, right down the street, and ended up circled back to sit on the museum steps while they ate and talked about everything they looked at inside.

  


“This is what you dragged me out this early on a Saturday for?” Watari says. “Shigeru, we’ve been here, like, a thousand times, you know that, right?”

  


“Yeah, yeah, but they’ve got this cool special exhibit on genetics right now,” Yahaba says. “I figured Kyoutani’d wanna see it. And I know you like going through all the transportation shit. We can get ice cream after, whatever.”

  


“So sentimental,” Watari says, shoving at his shoulder.

  


Shigeru shoves back. “Shut up.”

  


Kentarou’s buzzing beneath his skin, though, and doesn’t have the time to stick around waiting for them to finish bickering. He grabs Yahaba’s and Watari’s hands and pulls them along. He knows Yahaba couldn’t really care less about science when it comes down to it. There are pieces he finds interesting, sure, but it was always his least favorite subject in school. Kentarou would sit with him in his room late into the evening trying to help him with biology and chemistry, and good grades on exams were always cause for celebration. But he knows Kentarou likes it, and will listen to him talk about the journals he reads and bring him places like this, because of course Yahaba keeps track of what exhibits are passing through which museums.

  


Yahaba sticks at Kentarou’s side the whole way through the exhibit, asks questions about the things he takes his time looking at. When Kentarou answers, he listens intently, nodding along. He takes selfies with Watari while Kentarou reads about baby chicks, and more with Kentarou while Watari’s walking alongside old train cars he’s seen a thousand times before.

  


“You’re both the same, you know,” Yahaba comments. He leans into Kentarou’s side while they wait for Watari to finish reading one of the plaques. “Losers.”

  


Kentarou snorts and pulls back, just to knock his shoulder into Yahaba’s. “You’re one to talk. Calling me at ass o’clock to whine about anime.”

  


“Anime’s cool!”

  


“You _wish.”_

  


Yahaba scrunches his nose up at Kentarou, face far too close, and his breathing stutters, just for a second. He wonders, sometimes, if Yahaba’s heart ever catches in his throat like this when he pulls this shit.

  


He makes sure, later, when they’re all tucked on the front steps of the museum with ice cream they probably shouldn’t be eating at this temperature anymore, that Watari is sitting between them. Just so he doesn’t do anything stupid. So Yahaba doesn’t. Kentarou’s been feeling too much all at once all day — he needs a moment to find his footing again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yahaba has two jobs, technically. He works late shifts at the library three days out of the week and sometimes all day on weekends, and does freelance photography. They probably bring in roughly the same amount of money on the whole, given that the photography work is less consistent, balancing out the higher pay each check is. It’s enough to make rent and to do shit like bring Kentarou out on surprise trips to museums or drop off his favorite sweets when he’s stressed over a paper, and Yahaba seems content with it.

  


The thing is, it leads him to keep a stupidly weird, backwards schedule, which means Kentarou’s being dragged out at midnight to get boba tea. There are only two places in the whole of Miyagi that have it, and one that’s still open in the middle of the night, halfway across town from Kentarou’s apartment. But he doesn’t complain when Yahaba shows up. Not seriously, anyway.

  


He climbs into the passenger seat and pulls the blanket from the back seat, and Yahaba ruffles his hair with slightly too rough a hand. Kentarou wonders if he actually knows his own strength sometimes.

  


Most nights, Yahaba talks his ear off. He’s got plenty to say, all the time, about anime or clients from his work or whatever the hell Watari’s got going on with his girlfriend. He’ll tell Kentarou hey, hey, _listen_ , listen to this— and Kentarou will listen and watch Yahaba drive with one hand on the wheel, his mouth moving a mile a minute, face just as animated as the tone of his voice. He thinks Yahaba might be the most captivating person on the planet. It’s not even his feelings for him speaking, either. It’s that Yahaba’s genuinely fascinating, entertaining, interesting.

  


Other nights, it’s quiet between them. If Yahaba’s tired or in a mood, or knows Kentarou’s exhausted, it’s quiet. Silence between them has always been comfortable, other than the occasional time it comes with a fight between them. Whatever’s going through their minds can be translated without words by now.

  


Tonight’s different, though. Yahaba’s quiet, and Kentarou can’t really tell what he’s thinking. He’s just—

  


Quiet.

  


The hand that’s not on the steering wheel rests on his own thigh, tapping to the beat of the Backstreet Boys song he has playing. He keeps chewing on his lip, catching himself, and then going right back to it absentmindedly a few minutes later. Kentarou isn’t sure if this is something he wants him to ask about.

  


Yahaba pays for his tea, and doesn’t complain about the flavor Kentarou prefers like he generally does. So Kentarou’s a little concerned.

  


“You alright?” he asks as they get back into his car.

  


Yahaba nods and takes a sip of his drink. He barely meets Kentarou’s eye before looking away again. Yahaba’s neon sign heart flickers, and Kentarou can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to say. He does, though, bring his hand over to Kentarou’s knee halfway back to his apartment, fingers tapping the inside of his thigh. Too light, too fleeting, but still present.

  


Kentarou’s heart is an unsteady rhythm in his chest. Somewhere in their third year of high school, Yahaba lost all the baby fat in his cheeks. With that came more pronounced cheekbones and a slimmer face below, and here in the moonlight, like this, the way it lights him is a little bit haunting. Like he’s a ghost, ready to disappear from Kentarou at any given moment. He turns to look at Kentarou when they stop at a red light and pushes a finger into the crease between his eyebrows.

  


“Stop thinking so hard. You’re making that ugly face again,” he says, voice soft.

  


“Trying to get on par with yours,” Kentarou replies, shooting for snarky and missing it by a mile. His heart’s too caught up in its stupid, erratic rhythm for him to be anything but awkward.

  


Yahaba sticks out his tongue and turns away, smile on his face still off the mark.

  


He stays in the car when he circles back around to Kentarou’s apartment. He won’t come up; he knows Kentarou has assignments to finish, and he claims to have already taken up enough of his time. Like it’s something he’s ever once felt guilty about. Like Kentarou’s ever actually been annoyed by him invading his space and distracting him from all his responsibilities.

  


Kentarou’s got a foot on the pavement when Yahaba’s hand reaches out for his, stopping him before he can fully get out. He meets his gaze, ears red with (blush, Kentarou _knows_ he’s blushing).

  


And Kentarou knows, then, exactly what’s coming. He’s not ready for it, but then, he’s starting to think he’s never going to be ready for it. He should be taking this leap, not Yahaba. He’s been on the edge for years, and Yahaba’s only been standing in the same place for a handful of months. Kentarou should be making this jump, spilling his guts, before he loses his chance and loses Yahaba entirely. His chest feels like knotting. He feels like— like he’s just been on the receiving end of one of Yahaba’s sucker punches, even though the blow has yet to come. And it doesn’t come.

  


Yahaba’s looking at him, in that way only Yahaba does, and the way Yahaba always does when he’s looking at Kentarou — like he can see every piece of him under his skin, inside and out. Like it doesn’t matter what Kentarou might try to hide from him, because he’s going to see it anyway. So he’s got to see something on his face, because his smile dials down about twelve notches into something softer, something sadder, and he only says, “Let me know when you get in okay, alright?”

  


Kentarou snorts, trying to be casual. Trying not to choke. “It’s two floors up. I’ll be fine.”

  


“But that guy’s still been hanging out in the stairwell. I don’t trust him.”

  


“I’ll text you,” Kentarou promises, rolling his eyes. Yahaba flashes a smile like Kentarou can’t see every last one of his secrets, too, and releases his hand.

  


“As soon as you’re in the door,” Yahaba says.

  


“I know.”

  


Kentarou’s got a hand on the door to his building, but can’t pull it open. He knows Yahaba’s Jeep is still idling behind him, waiting to make sure he actually gets inside, because he always thinks someone’s going to jump him right at the last second if he isn’t watching. He’s so fucking stupid. The dumbest in the whole entire world. He’s overdramatic and nonsensical and he sometimes texts Kentarou in the middle of the day just to make sure he’s doing okay, even though they just got off the phone, like, twenty minutes ago.

  


He sighs and slowly turns around, shoes scuffing against the sidewalk. Kentarou’s heart is trying to strangle him as he walks back to Yahaba’s car, and motions for him to roll down his window. Yahaba looks him in the eye, but his expression is fully guarded in a way it hasn’t been since they were kids.

  


“Yahaba. Can you just . . . I know. What you were going to say.” Kentarou’s eyes search his face, looking for any tell-tale signs of how he’s actually feeling. His gaze shifts, avoiding Kentarou now. “Why didn’t you?”

  


Yahaba sucks in a slow, shaky breath. His fingers curl around the very top edge of the window still peeking out from the door frame. “You looked like you didn’t want me to. You looked like you didn’t . . . want me.”

  


Over summers, Kentarou used to walk down to the nearest pool with his older sister. They had a water slide with the world’s sharpest drop at the end, a moderately sized sandpit just off to the side of the shallow end, and a three meter high diving board. Every summer, Kentarou would walk up to the diving board ladder, put one foot up on the bottom rung, then immediately turn back around, the thought of climbing all the way up alone twisting his stomach into knots. A couple times, he forced himself to suck it up and climb, walked to the end of the board, and chickened out before he could actually jump.

  


It was a far drop. He knew, logically, that he would be fine. That the water would catch him, wrap itself safely around him, and carry him over to the ladder at the side so he could climb out. There was nothing to fear. But seven-year-old Kentarou looked down at the lapping little waves, and felt his hands shake. By the time infants can crawl, they have enough sense of depth to know not to crawl off any surfaces that drop into open spaces. There’s an innate knowledge that the fall, no matter how big or small, could hurt. So looking three meters down, Kentarou couldn’t force himself to jump. They moved before he ever got the chance to conquer his fear, and that particular pool became too far to visit again.

  


Kentarou slides his hand into Yahaba’s and waits until he meets his eyes. “I didn’t,” he admits in a single, quiet breath. Yahaba’s face falls, and Kentarou pretends he doesn’t feel it in his chest. “I was scared. I _am_ scared. I’ve been scared for the past four years. I keep telling myself I’m not ready to hear it. Just . . .” Kentarou braces himself, pulse in his ears, and jumps. “I have kind of been in love with you, for four whole years, and I’m scared out of my mind, Yahaba.”

  


He feels the chill raising goosebumps on his arms, the water closing around him, pulling him down for a full breath. Yahaba’s free hand comes up to rest on the back of his neck, thumb gliding in an arc at the base of his skull.

  


“You’re not the only one who’s scared, you know,” he says, voice soft. “But it was worse, not saying anything about it.” He pulls Kentarou’s face towards him until their foreheads knock together. Kentarou’s eyes flicker down to his lips for half a second before he catches himself. “I couldn’t lie to you.”

  


“I couldn’t lose you,” Kentarou chokes out.

  


A promise: “You won’t.”

  


Yahaba’s lips are as soft as the rest of him. He twines their fingers properly together and keeps Kentarou pulled close, as if he actually intends to go anywhere else at all in the world. The water pushes him back to the surface, even as his pulse continues racing.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The summer Yahaba got his wisdom teeth out, his face swelled to three times its normal size, and he couldn’t eat solid food for a week after. He was all fucked up after the procedure — his parents showed Kentarou a video when he dropped by with pudding, where his head kept drooping off to the side, and even after the nurse told him to stop chewing on the gauze in his mouth, he carried on doing it. Kentarou couldn’t tell whether it was because he genuinely forgot her words, or if he was doing it out of petty spite.

  


He sent Kentarou about eighteen texts over the course of the car ride between the medical office and his house, only a small handful of them actually readable, none of them correlated. He went dead quiet for an hour after that, even after Kentarou replied to each message individually, and only came back with a photo of the band-aid on his elbow from where the IV had gone in, and a caption to say _thIs is whats beeen makigns my arm hrut foR AN H O URR._

  


Kentarou went straight over after his shift at work with pudding and frozen peas, and Yahaba clung to his side the entire evening, keeping his head on his shoulder even as he complained how badly it hurt his cheeks. Yahaba was already an honest enough person, but those few hours were like truth on steroids. He just kept _going,_ spouting off everything from his opinion on the book Kentarou had gotten him to read, to what he thought about Kentarou letting the blonde go from his hair for the first time in years ( _pretty hot, actually, keep it_ ), to the way the lead actor in the movie they were watching made him feel inside. Most of it was more than Kentarou ever needed to know, but it was something oddly touching, to hear Yahaba’s unfiltered, honest thoughts.

  


(He made Kentarou swear on his grave to never repeat a _word_ of what he said to _anyone,_ and Kentarou promised. Of course, that didn’t include Watari, who laughed for two weeks straight over it all after.)

  


A week after Yahaba kisses Kentarou outside his apartment building, the same level of truth comes out of him, no drugs involved. He lays across Kentarou’s bed, hand rested on Kentarou’s chest, right above his heart, and tells him he’s probably liked him for way longer than he knew, but only realized how far his feelings actually went when Kentarou went away for two whole months and Yahaba realized how much he wanted him back. How badly he missed him at three in the morning when they were usually tucked together playing Super Mario Land on Yahaba’s beat up Gameboy Color, and that he didn’t feel comfortable or rested until Kentarou’s flight touched down again.

  


Kentarou tells him, between long, lazy kisses that he’s been in love with him since right before their third year in high school started, and liked him for a whole lot longer than that. Been in love with him since he caught Yahaba crying over videos of baby fucking pigs, totally delirious with a 102° fever, sweaty and snotty and _crying_ when Kentarou showed up with medicine and trashy magazines.

  


“Fucking liar,” Yahaba murmurs against his mouth.

  


“I’m serious,” Kentarou replies, hands gripping his waist. “Something about you looking half-dead that really gets me going.”

  


_“Disgusting.”_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You made me drive,” Yahaba says, squinting at the sign, “fifty-four minutes, for a public pool.” He pulls his sunglasses off his face and turns to look at Kentarou. “You know there’s one _at_ my apartment complex, right? You know this? You’ve used it before, I hope to the heavens you’re aware. We almost had sex in the hot tub, like, three weeks ago.”

  


“This one’s special,” Kentarou tells him. He opens his car door and doesn’t wait for Yahaba before he starts walking to the entrance. He catches up anyway, shoving himself into Kentarou’s side.

  


“Okamura-san catching you with a hand down my swimming shorts is pretty damn special, too. My knees are so fucking sore, dude.”

  


“Grandpa.”

  


Yahaba tries to pay the admittance fee, and pouts when Kentarou won’t let him. He pesters him about it the entire time they’re searching for an empty lounge chair to drop all their shit at, but forgets by the time they have their towels laid out and sunscreen applied. Kentarou watches him scan the pool, hardly anything bigger or more spectacular than what’s at his apartment, and almost identical to what’s down the street from Kentarou’s.

  


But the high dive is still there.

  


“You’re not seriously thinking about that, are you?” Yahaba asks, following his gaze. “You hate heights. You cried when you found out you had to fly to Korea.”

  


Kentarou glances over at him. “It’s three meters.”

  


“Three meters higher than you ever like to be off the ground.”

  


“What are you, worried for me or somethin’?”

  


Yahaba wrinkles his nose. “Gross. As if. Get over yourself, maybe.” Still, his hand finds its way to Kentarou’s.

  


“Cute that you care about me.”

  


“Whatever! I love you, shut up about it!”

  


Kentarou flashes him a smile and pulls him along towards the diving board. It doesn’t look quite as high as he remembers it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still daunting. His stomach twists in a familiar way, but he shoves the feeling down. The water will catch him.

  


“I can’t believe you,” Yahaba says. “This is what you had me drive you all the way out here for? You’re sick. You’re seriously— You don’t _like heights._ You’d better jump, then, because I did not let you kill my knees just so you could chicken out like a punk-ass little—“

  


Kentarou presses his lips to Yahaba’s for one fleeting second. His ears are red when he pulls back, and he doesn’t say anything more.

  


“I’ll get you ice cream later,” Kentarou promises.

  


He’s slow as he climbs the ladder, slower as he steps towards the end of the board. It’s not a far drop, and he’ll be safe when he lands, but that doesn’t make it any less scary to face. His toes curl over the edge, and the board bounces ever so slightly as he shifts his weight.

  


Kentarou sucks in a breath.

  


From below, Yahaba calls out, “Chicken shit!”

  


A smile pulls at Kentarou’s lips as he shakes his head and jumps.


End file.
